Dallas Heart Study Brings New Insights About Depression

Dallas-December 14, 2020-A recently published UT Southwestern study provides new insights into risk factors for depression based on data from a groundbreaking longitudinal study focused on heart disease. I have made it clear.

One studyPublished in Journal of Clinical PsychiatryShows a link between inflammatory molecules in the blood and the potential for depressive symptoms in humans.other Research, In the journal Maturity, Shows which symptoms of menopause are the most predictive of depression.

Both studies are based on data from Dallas Heart Study Since 2000, the DHS has tracked the health of thousands of participants with the goal of improving the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of heart disease.

“DHS datasets are an extraordinary resource for UT Southwestern,” he said. Sherwood Brown, MD, Ph.D., Senior author of both treatises, professor of psychiatry, and vice chair of clinical research at UTSW.

In the first two years of the survey, more than 6,000 residents of Dallas County completed a detailed medical survey. 3,500 people between the ages of 30 and 65 provided blood samples and underwent imaging tests. DHS has a particular focus on hiring diverse groups. More than half of all participants were African-American and 17% were Hispanic.

In the process of gathering information, data useful for studying other medical conditions was accumulated. Brown soon saw the usefulness of DHS data in his own study of depression.

Inflammation and depression

Depression is estimated to affect 4.4% of the world’s population and is one of the leading causes of disability. Researchers have a hard time understanding all the molecular changes in the body that accompany major depressive disorder. Over 20 years ago, clinicians discovered that pro-inflammatory drugs used to treat some illnesses can cause depression. Since then, researchers, including Brown, have wondered about the link between inflammatory molecules and depression.

To that end, Brown and Samara Hackvale (Columbia University undergraduate and high school student working in Brown’s lab in 2019 through the UT Southwestern STARS (Science Teacher Access to Southwestern Resources) Summer Research Program) Provided blood samples and completed the Depression Screening Questionnaire as part of the DHS. Launched in 1991, the STARS program provides high school students with the opportunity to study in the summer.

They found that levels of GlycA, an inflammatory molecule that is not routinely tested in patients, correlate with the severity of depressive symptoms. Even after adjusting for factors such as gender, ethnicity, antidepressant use, education, and obesity index, GlycA levels remained associated with the severity of depression.

“This study suggests that depression may be predicted or diagnosed based on inflammation scores,” said Hackvale, a chemist. “Or, in the end, we will be able to design treatments that actually target this inflammation to treat depression.”

Brown, prominent chairman of Lou and Ellen McGinley in psychiatric research and Aladin S. Ard in brain science, can predict how well GlycA levels will be in treating depression. Or, he adds, wants to study if it helps to guide the best. Antidepressants for specific patients. He also wants to follow patients over time to measure whether GlycA levels rise before or after the onset of symptoms of depression.

Menopause and depression

In Maturity The treatise, Brown and his colleagues, used DHS data to study menopausal women, a group known to be at increased risk of depression.

Previous studies have found a correlation between the most common symptoms of menopause (hot, night sweats, sleep disorders) and the development of depression. Menopause also causes sexual symptoms such as vaginal dryness and decreased libido, but few studies have investigated the association between these symptoms and depression.

In this study, Brown et al. Analyzed DHS data from 384 women aged 37-73 years who self-reported to be menopausal. 64% of women were non-Hispanic blacks, 26.8% were non-Hispanic whites, and 9.11% were Hispanic.

“It was important to look at a very diverse sample of women because of the very different cultural and ethnic experiences around menopause,” said the co-lead author of the study and a fourth-year UTSW medical student. Said Michael Xincheng Ji.

As part of the Dallas Heart Study, women reported whether they had symptoms that were classically associated with menopause. Researchers have categorized this as vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, or sexual symptoms. In addition, each woman completed a quick inventory of depressive symptoms-self-reported survey (QIDS-SR) that measures the presence of depressive symptoms.

The prevalence of sexual symptoms during menopause was positively correlated with higher scores for QIDS-SR. This association was maintained after excluding women taking antidepressants, and was also associated with the psychosocial symptoms of menopause and the QIDS-SR score. No association was found between vasomotor or physical symptoms and QIDS-SR scores, and ethnicity was not a strong predictor of depressive symptoms.

“Recognizing patterns of people most likely to develop depression is very important in guiding our screening efforts,” said the new co-lead author and UTSW Medical Student 4 Grader Sydney Singleterry says.

“I hope these findings make clinicians think about the possibility of depression when they hear women reporting these symptoms,” says Brown, who is also a member. .. Peter O’Donnell Junior Brain Institute..